During the day yesterday, I guessed (before checking our incoming traffic) that we had been linked on at least one liberal blog given the number of hate commentscaught in the spam filter. The filter caught smart comments as well,including faircritiques of my post; perhaps we can attribute those to Glenn Reynolds’s link. (And at least one clever quip.)

Since I took the day off from blogging, I read more comments than I normally do and chose to rescue nearly every comment, no matter how mean, no matter how jaundiced a view of gay conservatives they offered.

These comments showed the worst — and the best — of the blogosphere, the worst those who respond with attacks rather than arguments, the best, those addressing the actual substance of the argument and even teasing out its flaws.

Do hope those who offered the thoughtful comments keep coming back and keep commenting. And do hope the others learn from their manner of discourse.

FROM THE COMMENTS: alanstorm questions a left-wing cliche about gay conservatives:

”To be gay and conservative, to be black and conservative, to be poor and conservative, is a contradiction in terms.”

As usual, assertions offered with no supporting evidence, just another assertion that gays are “despised” because of who they are.

@GayPatriot When did you post about Barney Frank supporting an anti-gay Democrat over a pro-gay Republican on your site then?
May 03, 4:15 PM via Choqok

GayPatriot

@AmysFantasies If you don’t think we criticized Barney Frank…. then you have never read our blog.
May 03, 4:47 PM via web

AmysFantasies

@GayPatriot I’m only going to ask one more time. The link I posted cites a specific story about Barney Frank. Did you cover it? Yes or no.
May 03, 4:57 PM via Choqok

GayPatriot

@AmysFantasies STFU. #BLOCKED.
May 03, 5:00 PM via web

He wasn’t joking either, he really did block me for this exchange. This is just hilariously ironic given the story here not too long ago about liberals being far more likely to block or unfriend people because of political disagreements, then Bruce loses it and blocks me because of three tweets asking whether or not he covered a story about Barney Frank that I think was very important and something that definitely belonged on this site.

To clarify, the article I posted is from Good As You and details occasions where Barney Frank placed partisan politics over LGBT rights, supporting anti-gay Democrats over neutral or even pro-gay Republicans simply because of the D next to their names. That’s utterly ridiculous in my opinion, and was exactly the sort of thing GayPatriot should’ve highlighted to the gay community. A vote for Barney Frank was not always a vote for gay rights, and voting against Frank may not have just been beneficial from a conservative point of view, it could’ve benefited those of a progressive agenda too!

My beef was that the ‘skewering’ of Frank focused too much on Frank’s personality and the conservatism of his opponents, preaching to a segment of the electorate that was always going to oppose Frank and ignoring Frank’s usual supporters who would be repulsed by his actions in opposing pro-gay Republican candidates and more likely to switch sides or just stay at home rather than support a man willing to put partisan politics over LGBT rights. Whether or not the story was ever covered her is something I do not know, searching the site tends to be pretty difficult due to the lack of a full-text search and the unorthodox tagging system.

This was the Twitter debate that got Bruce to block me and I’m sad it ended this way. I hold no particular animus towards Bruce over this and I would hope he comes to his senses. I was not spamming (three tweets over three days is hardly a deluge) and my concerns were genuine, I want to see you doing better in trying to unseat Democrats because solid, honest efforts to do so benefit everyone. You may keep me blocked and may even object to me bringing this up here, but those are my thoughts and I hope for all parties to be reasonable in this.

P.S. I’ve saved this post in its entirety on my own side just in case it get deleted, and one upshot of this is that while I lost one follower, I gained two others while telling my story about it. One step back, two steps forward I guess.

Actually, Pomposity, the reason Bruce blocked you is very straightforward: you’re a troll.

If you think I’m enjoying this, I am. A lot. No matter who wins the next election, everyone else in this thread will have multiple reasons to hate them. As for me, I stopped caring about two months ago. Makes very little difference to me either way, so I intend to antagonize all of you as much as possible and have some fun.

Comment by Serenity — November 5, 2011 @ 6:40 am – November 5, 2011

Your lies don’t work here, child; we know exactly what you are like and what your motivations are, and we have zero qualms about calling them out.

Now, since you slandered and lied about Bruce, explain why he should continue to tolerate you posting, especially since you yourself have screamed and cried and demanded banning of other people who you feel are only there to antagonize you.

All this boils down to is poor, pathetic little Pomposity trying to lie its way out of its problems and demand that others follow rules that it will never under any circumstances follow itself. And that fact has now been made patently obvious to any and all observers.

I blocked Serenity on Twitter because he/she was hounding me and asserting we had never criticized Barney Frank. I informed he/she that he/she obviously never read this blog. I didn’t know that he/she was Serenity. Now that I do…. I’d like to add: